Flight

So after months of filling out forms and buying supplies I have finally made it to Tanzania! Yesterday I took the five hour drive from Oneida to JFK.  I don't think what I was about to do really hit me until I was waiting in the security line to go in the gate.  I could see Dad right outside of the line, but I realized that at this point there wasn't really anything else he could do for me.  I had to find my way to Tanzania myself, without assistance from my parents.  This was a somewhat terrifying thought.  I mean I have navigated airports by myself hundreds of times before this, but all of those flights were within the United States, and I was usually flying either to a parent or to a place I was very comfortable with.

So I'm in JFK freaking out a little bit, thinking of everything that could go wrong.  I could lose my passport or vaccine records, someone could steal my money, the airport could lose my baggage... There were so many things that could go wrong with this trip.  I couldn't help but think about how much easier things would be if I had just gone on some 3 week trip to Europe.  Thankfully before I could psych myself out too much I meet two of the girl I was going to Tanzania with.  They both seemed really nice, if not somewhat intimidatingly smart.  Both girls were freaking out much like I was, which made me feel a lot better.  We promised to wait for each other at our gate in Amsterdam so we could figure out the airport together.

The airplane we took into Amsterdam was a Delta/KLM flight.  We were on a Delta plane, which I was not to happy about.  Delta has never been my favorite airline; in fact it is definitely my least favorite airline.  It turned out that, even though it was a Delta plane, all the food and entertainment services were KLM.  So basically the only Delta issue I had to deal with was crappy legroom, which made trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in nearly impossible.

In Amsterdam, as promised, me and the other girls met up after exiting the flight.  It turned out that finding our way to the next gate was really easy, we were right next to it.  At this gate the three of us found four or so other member of our group.  After meeting everyone and seeing how nice and friendly everyone was, I was feeling much better about my situation.  If these were the people I was spending the next six weeks with, this might just be a fun time.

The next flight was the longest flight I had ever been on, but I was seated with one of the girls I had meet up with in NYC and we had a row of three to ourselves.  We were able to stretch out (with the extra leg room provided by KLM planes) and get some sleep.

When I got into Tanzania last night, it was too dark to really see any of the stuff that was around us, so I'm really excited for today.  We are having an orientation where we will see our classroom and meet our teacher.  Hopefully we will also have sometime to explore!